The Age of Grief - Jane Smiley [31]
“Want some cocoa? I always make some before I go to bed.”
He stops. “Yeah. Why not? Am I mistaken, or have you been up since about six a.m.?”
“About that. But I’m always wired at midnight, no matter what.”
He follows her into the kitchen, remembering now that they have never conversed and wishing that he had stayed in bed. He has drunk himself stupid. Whatever words he has in him have to be summoned from very far down. He sits at the table. After a minute he puts his chin in his hand. After a long, blank, rather pleasant time, the cocoa is before him, marshmallow and all. He looks at it. When Leanne speaks, Kirby is startled, as if he had forgotten that she was there.
“Tired?” she says.
“Too much to drink.”
“I noticed.”
“I don’t have anything more to say about it.”
“I’m not asking.”
He takes a sip of his cocoa. He says, “Do you all see much of Eric and family?”
“They came last Christmas. He came by himself in the summer. To a conference on the future of the family.”
“And so you have to put up with him, right?”
“Harold has a three-day limit. I don’t care.”
“I noticed you unwrapped all Isaac’s presents.”
She shrugs, picks at the sole of her boot. She yawns without covering her mouth, and then says, “Oh, I’m sorry.” She smiles warmly, looking right at him. “I am crazy about Kristin. Crazy enough to not chance messing up Christmas for her.”
“Today she told me that jumping off a cushion was a beautiful thing to do.”
Leanne smiles. “Yesterday she said that it was wonderful of me to give her a napkin. You know, I don’t agree with Eric about that body stuff. I think they naturally do what is healthy for them. Somebody did an experiment with one-year-olds, gave them a range of foods to choose from, and they always chose a balanced diet. They also want to be toilet trained sooner or later. I think it’s weird the way Eric thinks that every little thing is learned rather than realized.”
“That’s a nice phrase.” He turns his cup handle so that it points away and then back in his direction. Finally he says, “Can I tell you about something?”
“Sure.”
“Yesterday a friend of mine called me from Japan, a woman, to say that she couldn’t come visit me. Her father has cancer. She had planned to arrive here the day after tomorrow, and we were going to take a trip out west. It isn’t important, exactly. I don’t know.”
Leanne is silent but attentive, picking at the sole of her boot. Now that he has mentioned it, the memory of Mieko’s anguish returns to him like a glaring light or a thundering noise, so enormous that he is nearly robbed of the power to speak. He pushes it out. “She can’t come now, ever. She probably won’t ever call or write me again. And really, this has saved her. She had all sorts of expectations that I couldn’t have … well, wouldn’t have fulfilled, and if she had come she would have been permanently compromised.”
“Did you have some kind of affair when you were there?”
“For a few months. She’s very pretty. I think she’s the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen. She teaches mathematics at the school where I was teaching. After I had been with Mieko for a few weeks, I realized that no one, maybe in her whole adult life, had asked her how she was, or had put his arm around her shoulders, or had taken care of her in any way. The slightest affection was like a drug she couldn’t get enough of.”
“What did you feel?”
“I liked her. I really did. I was happy to see her when she came by. But she longed for me more than I have ever longed for anything.”
“You were glad to leave.”
“I was glad to leave.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“When she called yesterday, she broke down completely. I listened. I thought it was the least I could do, but now I think that she is compromised. Japanese people are very private. It scares me how much I must have embarrassed her. I look back on the spring and the summer and yesterday’s call, and I